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Xamarin Mobile Application Development for iOS

If you want to develop iOS apps with Xamarin, and this comprehensive tutorial has it all. Covering everything from the UI to using TestFlight, it’s your fast route to the App Store.

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Book Details

ISBN 139781783559183

Paperback222 pages

About This Book

A clear and concise look at how to create your own apps building on what you already know of C#

Create advanced and elegant apps by yourself

Ensure that the majority of your code can also be used with Android and Windows Mobile 8 devices

Who This Book Is For

This book is written for those who are new to iOS app development as well as more experienced developers who just need a quick reference book. It is assumed that you are already comfortable using C#. Those teaching iOS to new students will also find this book invaluable as a form of reference material.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Installing the Xamarin Product Range for Android and iOS

Installing Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android

Enabling Visual Studio to build and run iOS applications

Installing additional code for Android development

Summary

Chapter 2: The User Interface

Creating the User Interface with Xcode

MonoTouch.Dialog (MT.D)

Summary

Chapter 3: Views and Layouts

Selection of the project type

The iOS layout

Views and View Controllers

Summary

Chapter 4: Controllers

UITableView and UITableViewCell

TabBars

PageControl

GLKit

Summary

Chapter 5: UI Controls

Controls and widgets

UI Controls

Comparing Android to iOS UI controls

Summary

Chapter 6: Events

Handling events

Events and controls reference

Chapter 7: Gestures

Gestures

Handling drag-and-drop

Summary

Chapter 8: Threading

Threading Concepts

The main UI thread

Starting a new thread from the main UI thread

The AppDelegate class

Summary

Chapter 9: Threading Tasks

A brief introduction to threading

Using Asynchronous code

Summary

Chapter 10: Animation

Handling bitmaps

Freeing memory after use

Summary

Chapter 11: Handling Data

Using SQLite

Setting up an SQLite helper class

Data manipulation using LINQ

Summary

Chapter 12: Peripherals

Using the camera

GPS and Mapping

Storage on the phone

Making a phone call

Sending and receiving a text message

Accessing the Internet

Multimedia

Summary

Chapter 13: User Preferences

The built-in system

Rolling your own settings system

Summary

Chapter 14: Testing and Publishing

Provisioning and signing your app

TestFlight

Preparing to package

The App Store Submission Process

Summary

What You Will Learn

Create a working user interface

Understand and write a cross-platform configuration system

Learn how to create an SQLite helper system and master the basics of LINQ

Use and manipulate graphics

Get the most out of your iOS device with very little code

Publish your very own app on Apple’s app store

Come to terms with threading in a mobile world

In Detail

Before the release of monotouch, development on iOS was purely in Objective C. There was nothing wrong with that except for one thing – it’s very unpleasant to write code in! The release of Xamarin changed all of that, and with it brought cross-platform development to the mobile world.

Xamarin Mobile Application Development for iOS is not just your normal everyday book on iOS app development. Everything is written for a point and not for effect, and therefore you will learn everything you need to know quickly and efficiently without getting bogged down in needless information. The code has been taken from fully tested apps, so you can just drop it into your code and it will work out of the box.

In this clear and informative guide, you will be taken on a whirlwind tour of iOS application development with Xamarin, from setting up a development environment on your PC or Mac to testing and distribution through the Apple Store with plenty of practical examples along the way.

The book begins by discussing the installation of the IDE (for both PC and Mac) as well as how to set up your PC so it can be used to develop for iOS. From there, successive chapters cover the user interface, views, view controllers, customisation of controls, animation, events and event handling, getting the most from your app using threading, creating your own settings system, the internal database system and LINQ, sending texts, making calls, taking photos, videos, and audio recordings as well as using the mapping system. The book culminates by showing you how to test your app using testflight and finally how to release your app on the Apple Store. It is an all-encompassing book that leaves nothing out.

Authors

Paul F. Johnson

Paul F. Johnson has been writing about software since the days of the old 8-bit micros in the 1980s, with his first piece on software being published in 1984 for BBC Micro. From there, his passion to learn and develop increased, along with his love for chemistry. For many years, he married the two at the University of Salford, culminating in commercial work for RiscStation Ltd. as well as working on the award winning Scribus desktop publishing application.
For many years, he contributed a great amount of time to the Fedora Project (a community-based Linux distribution sponsored by RedHat) and, in 2002, he started becoming interested in the Mono project from Ximian. That was the beginning of the end of his time in the field of education and, over the next 10 years, he learned how to code in VB.NET. and C#. Ximian was sold to Novell, which was in turn bought out, and from that, Xamarin was born. The rest is history.
With the advent of a workable .NET system that can be used in a non-Windows environment, the stage was set for the hard work to begin. When Xamarin released monodroid, he could see that his years of learning could now be turned into a profit.He started developing code full-time for the platform. Shortly afterwards, he began working on iOS devices as well.
At the start of 2013 he, along with Andrei and his good friend Scott, formed Sporkish, the objective being to produce unbeatable software for the mobile world.
This is his first foray into the world of books, though he has had many articles published in the Overload and C Vu journals of Association of C and C++ Users (he edited the latter for over a year). He is currently developing mobile applications for Farmtrack Pty (Australia) and HelloU (London, UK), and is in discussions with Packt Publishing on the publication of another book, this time on AI and Expert Systems.
Paul is 42, lives with his wife, dog, cats, and son, and drinks way too much coffee!

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